


Coming Home (For Christmas)

by rory_the_dragon



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Brian Thinks Too Much, Christmas, Christmas Angst, Christmas Fluff, College Years Queen, Established Relationship, Homophobia, M/M, Meeting the Parents, Weird pacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 17:39:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17146157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rory_the_dragon/pseuds/rory_the_dragon
Summary: Brian’s father falls asleep in his armchair at six pm on Christmas Day, barely an hour after dinner and halfway through a glass of brandy and a conversation about Brian’s studies.Brian sits on his parents’ sofa and rolls his own glass between his palms. Every Christmas, exactly the same.Except for one, notable, difference.





	Coming Home (For Christmas)

Brian’s father falls asleep in his armchair at six pm on Christmas Day, barely an hour after dinner and halfway through a glass of brandy and a conversation about Brian’s studies.

It’s so painfully typical of the man, and of the day itself, that Brian had to sit there for a moment and take it all in. The too-hot, too-close fire crackling feet away from him and probably singeing the threads of his scratchy jumper. The radio playing tinny Christmas songs in the background, nowhere near loud enough to be considered a distraction. The lingering smell of an, admittedly sensational, Christmas meal courtesy of his hard-working mum, at odds with the pine smell of the tree and the smoke from his father’s dwindling pipe. 

Brian sits on his parents’ sofa and rolls his own brandy glass between his palms. Every Christmas, exactly the same.

Except for one, notable, difference.

He smiles, hearing Freddie chattering away to his mum in the kitchen.

He takes the opportunity, while he’s removing his father’s glass from his lax hands, to steal a glug of the warm liquid. Then he adds a generous finger or two to his own glass, and stands. Sways. They’d been allowed a glass and a half of red wine with the meal, his mum’s concession to Brian returning home from university for the holidays and not nursery school as he suspects she sometimes hopes, and that plus the brandy and the heat has caused a flush to his cheeks, a wobble to his legs. His tolerance has never been the highest, anyway. But he rights himself and leaves his father to the empty living room.

Freddie and his mum don’t notice his approach, and Brian leans against the door jamb to watch them for a moment. He likes it, he realises, seeing Freddie in a setting that once so entirely belonged only to him. Brian’s height chart is still scratched into the wall but there’s Freddie standing beside it, holding onto the tea-towel Brian always uses when he helps his mum out. There’s a picture of Brian in the windowsill, and Freddie’s face is reflected in the window beside it. Freddie is there wherever Brian turns in his life, and to see him slotted in so perfectly here as well makes Brian’s chest swell. 

His mum loves Freddie, Brian can tell already. Freddie arrived with a specially chosen Christmas bouquet, overbrimming with love for her only son, and Ruth May never stood a chance. Like mother, like son.

“Brian, dear.” His mum spots him first, face rosy from shared giggles with Freddie. “Is everything alright?”

Brian smiles, pretends he doesn’t see her face drop a little as she checks over his shoulder, as if she can see the damage done by the May men with just a look. Usually, she can. “Dad’s just fallen asleep,” he says, and the furrow between her eyes relaxes.

“Oh, I’ll go check on him. Make sure he’s comfortable.” As she passes, she presses a slightly soapy hand to Brian’s cheek and he leans into the touch. Brian’s found a whole world for himself at university, but he still misses his mum something fierce at times.

He also hides the brandy behind his back as she goes, but is pretty sure she sees it anyway.

Freddie’s face is a mixture of concern as Ruth leaves the room, trying to determine Brian’s state of mind in the forty-five minutes he’s been alone with his father, and Brian has to suppress the urge to scoop an arm around Freddie’s waist, kiss the worried expression off his mouth because Freddie should never look like that.

Maybe Freddie senses his mood, because he nudges a gentle elbow into Brian’s side as he approaches. “Your mother is an absolute doll,” he says, deftly stealing the brandy from Brian’s fingers and taking a delicate sip. “And she definitely likes me best now; don’t think we didn’t notice how you didn’t offer to help with the washing up!”

“This is the first time you’ve ever admitted to knowing what the strange thing with the taps in the kitchen even does, Fred.”

While Freddie makes an interesting noise mixed between offended outrage and amused acquiescence, Brian steals back his drink. Sets his mouth to the fogged-up place Freddie’s mouth just rested. Since they arrived at Brian’s parents’, it’s been a different game entirely. Brian doesn’t know how to make his body stop wanting Freddie and to go from being able to push Freddie up against the kitchen cabinets and have him, being able to kiss his cheek, run a mischievous hand under his t-shirt, wind an unthinking around his shoulders, is torture. Throughout dinner, Brian, possessed of longer legs and less reason to behave, pressed a socked foot against Freddie’s calf and watched the way his movements made Freddie shift in his seat, and it was brilliant in its own way but it was nothing compared to what he wanted.

“Well don’t think I’ll be doing this for you at home, just look at my _hands,_ ” Freddie is saying, brandishing a hand for Brian’s inspection. “Would your mother mind if I used her moisturiser, I can’t spend the rest of the-” he trickles to a halt as Brian catches his hand and presses a kiss to the pruned fingertips in question.

He barely manages two before Freddie snatches his hands away, hissing “ _Your mother!_ ”

It’s such a far cry from Freddie who’ll drag Brian close in any club, pulling Brian’s hands over him until it’s clear who he belongs to, always push the boundaries a little further than he should in public, kiss Brian on the stairs outside their flat where anyone could walk by just for the thrill of kissing him, that Brian laughs. “She’s busy,” he says, and slides his hands around Freddie’s hips, walking the smaller boy backwards until he hits the sink.

“Can’t imagine it’ll take fifteen minutes to check on a sleeping husband.” But Freddie lets himself be walked, back arching a little so Brian moves a hand to hold him up, hold him close.

“Fifteen minutes?” Brian arches an eyebrow, grins. “What do _you_ think we’re going to do in fifteen minutes in my mother’s kitchen?” And kisses the indignant noise from Freddie’s mouth.

Freddie is warm and his tongue tastes like wine and cranberry sauce. Brian can still taste it when his mum walks back in to find the two of them side by side, finishing the washing up with a clear foot between them, biting back stupid smiles.

“Thank you, boys.” She yawns, and Freddie is instantly flitting away from Brian to check on her. Brian takes over drying.

“Go and have a nap, mum,” he says, putting away the last few plates and hanging up the tea towel before he wraps an arm around her shoulders. It never fails to jar him, how much smaller she is than him now. He wonders how she feels, to feel her child wrap her under his arm, if it jars just the same. “We’ve got a little while until church, I’ll wake you in plenty of time.”

She _um_ s and _ah_ s before another helpless yawn takes her over, and then Freddie is practically frog-marching her to the living room. “Don’t worry about us, Ruth,” he says, because barely an hour into meeting him, Brian’s mum had already asked Freddie to call her by name. “I’m sure Brian will be a stunning host in your stead.”

“Yeah,” Brian grins from the doorway as Freddie ushers her onto the sofa Brian just vacated, delicately removes her paper cracker-hat and places it on the coffee table. “I’ll have him polish the silver next.”

“You be nice to guests, Brian May,” His mum scolds him lightly, but allows herself to be settled down in front of the fire beside her husband and is dozing in seconds.

 They shut the door to and the house is suddenly big and quiet and theirs.

 "A tour?” Brian offers, and Freddie grins.

“I want to see _every_ baby picture your mum has,” he declares, twisting warm fingers up with Brian’s and pulling him along to the hallway. “I didn’t get a chance to properly see- _this little guy!”_ He releases Brian instantly to clasp his hands together in cooing delight at a run of school photographs on the hallway wall.

Brian wishes he had more brandy. “You don’t want to see that,” he says weakly, and Freddie ignores him in favour of giggling at a particularly gangly picture of Brian, aged about fifteen, grumpily staring at the camera like it personally offended him. Brian’s mum had tutted at that one, but still hung it proudly beside the others and proclaimed to all who came to visit _Look how fast he’s growing, soon he’ll be off to college_.

“Oh, darling, don’t be silly, it’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” Freddie says, reading his silence correctly. “Mine are positively _awful_ . Can barely see me around my teeth. They kept _insisting_ I smile properly and regretted it when I did.”

“I like your smile,” Brian says because he can’t help it and because it’s true. Freddie’s habit of ducking his head when he smiles is less often these days but still makes Brian’s heart twist.

Freddie doesn’t say anything but his eyes soften. Then they widen, spotting the first photograph on the wall, a professional photo-shoot of Brian as a newborn that his parents saved all their money for and includes a naked baby Brian sleeping soundly in a white ceramic bowl, which means Freddie needs distracting fast.

“C’mere,” he says, setting his glass down on the phone table and pulling a resistant Freddie down into the stairway. He waits until Freddie’s stopped complaining and looks pointedly upwards.

Freddie does the same, and makes a small _Oh_ sound. Brian’s mum has hung mistletoe from the small chandelier in the entrance hall, and Brian’s positioned the two of them directly beneath.

“I’ve wanted to do this since we arrived,” Brian admits, because there’s a lot Brian doesn’t care for at Christmas, but a traditional excuse to kiss Freddie stupid feels quite festive to him.

“We’re right in front of the window,” Freddie points out, but his hands are already sliding up Brian’s chest, finding his neck, body pressing closer for Brian to hold, which he does, hands curling around Freddie’s hips. “Your neighbours-”

But there’s a certain kind of courage in Brian tonight, defiant and warm. “Oh fuck the neighbours,” he says, and kisses him.

Freddie isn’t in his usual platform heels tonight, having opted for a more sensible and conservative pair of flats, which means Brian has to bend twice as far to kiss him. He sways a little, using his grip on Freddie’s waist both to pull Freddie in and hold himself up a little. He feels Freddie smile, most likely _at_ Brian, into his mouth, and laughs. Brian thinks he could stay like this all night, trading laughter and kisses with Freddie, because Freddie is kissing him openly, lazily, humming a little against him, and it’s more intoxicating that the wine, the brandy, the heat. Freddie makes Brian’s head spin, makes him do all kinds of stupid shit like kissing him where all of Feltham could see them.

Since Freddie waltzed his way into Brian’s life nearly a year ago, something fundamental has changed in his make up. Something stronger in his bones, larger in his chest, something that makes Brian wild and daring. He loves Freddie, he knows he loves Freddie, but he also loves who he is when he’s with him.

There’s a group of carolers getting closer, and Brian waits to pull Freddie up the stairs at the last second before Good King Wenceslas makes it way down the May’s front lawn. They run, choking back laughter and gripping each other’s hands, until Brian closes the door of his childhood bedroom behind them and the world outside is muffled.

He leans back against the door, catching his breath, and watches Freddie wander in.

Freddie is so much of his room back at uni, practically moved in at this point although Brian has yet to ask the official question. There’s spandex hanging in Brian’s wardrobe, eyeliner on his desk, Freddie’s graphics coursework shoved hastily beside Brian’s physics essays. Two pairs of Nike’s kicked off by the door, both sides of Brian’s just-too-small bed slept in, Polaroids of Freddie, Freddie and Brian, Freddie and Roger, blu-tacked up with reckless abandon. It’s a lack that Brian always notices when he comes home for a weekend, misses like aching, but now Freddie’s _here_.

Here, running curious fingers along he bookshelves, picking up an old science trophy and laughing delightedly at the engraving of Brian’s name on the plaque.

“How old were you?”

“Can’t remember.” Brian grins. “There were a lot.”

Freddie rolls his eyes but sets the trophy down and continues his search.

“Hendrix poster, my kinda boy,” Freddie winks, and Brian laughs. Then Freddie sighs, clearly bored with the game already. “Darling, what are you doing over there by the door, I thought you promised me a tour.” He complains, wrapping an arm around himself as if exposed in the centre of Brian’s old bedroom.

Brian breathes in, breathes out, feels his chest fill up with oxygen and love and Freddie, and says, honest, “Just watching you.”

Freddie flushes. There’s a street lamp outside Brian’s bedroom window, the bane of his existence growing up, but it lights Freddie up in a soft glow, frames him in the window, and with the snow gently drifting down outside Brian thinks that this is a Christmas Day memory he wouldn’t mind taking for his own. He moves finally from the door, pulled towards Freddie by some unseeable, irresistible, force, and Freddie stops his embarrassed demurring to allow himself to be collected up in Brian’s arms and sweetly kissed.

“My mum loves you,” Brian says quietly, moving to kiss Freddie’s cheeks, and feels the rightness of his statement. He can still hear the carolers outside, sways them a little to the muffled tune.

Freddie hums. “Your father is less sure.”

“Fuck him.”

If there’s something out of the ordinary, less than the absolute upstanding perfect he expects from everyone but mostly his only son, Brian’s father disapproves. Brian knew that when bringing Freddie home, warned Freddie ahead of time, but he couldn’t _couldn’t_ leave Freddie alone in the flat on Christmas Day. Couldn’t sit with his parents in halting conversation knowing Freddie was in their bed or out drinking with Roger or anywhere that wasn’t with Brian on Christmas. Not when Freddie loved the holiday more than Brian ever expected, has blossomed with joy at the shitty tree Roger and Brian clubbed together to buy, went starry-eyed at the Christmas lights through London, placed terribly _terribly_ wrapped presents under the tree for them all with such childlike excitement. So Brian bundled up a part of his terrified heart and brought him home for Christmas Day and he’s glad he did, whatever Harold May thinks.

Because his mum loves Freddie and Freddie loves his mum and now Brian has Freddie to himself, to walk backwards and topple onto the single bed that never fit Brian as a teenager let alone two fully grown men in their twenties, but they make it work.

“Brian, darling.” Freddie’s voice is thick with held back laughter. “Are there _spaceships_ on your bedsheets?”

Brian’s changed his mind. Bringing Freddie home was a horrible, horrible mistake.

But then Freddie’s leaning up, brushing his top lip to Brian’s bottom, nose rubbing against Brian’s, still giggling, and Brian quite forgives him it all.

Brian never brought girls home growing up. Too awkward to even ask a girl to go steady, not that there’d been many opportunities, he never snuck a girl into his room to fool around but he can’t imagine it compares to having Freddie here beneath him. It feels slightly illicit, kissing Freddie this deeply in the room Brian grew up in, and maybe seventeen-year-old Brian would be a little shocked to know the use his room is currently being put to, but Brian likes to think he’s making good on a promise long ago. _Look what we have now, look at who loves us_.

Freddie’s laughter has stopped, turned to low little moans and an unconscious hitching of his hips. His hands slide their way into Brian’s hair, clutching but gentle, and Brian is too drunk and warm and full to be careful right now. He kisses lazily along Freddie’s neck, the curve of his ear, the dip of his collarbones, before returning to his mouth to swallow up the sounds Freddie is making. Freddie’s tongue is a languid curl against Brian’s, like a promise, and Brian’s trying to decide whether or not he can slide a hand into Freddie’s impossibly tight trousers, palm him off until he shudders and comes quietly- Brian’s other hand clamped over his mouth- in the same room where Brian used to shamefully wank in secret beneath his fucking astronaut sheets. The thought of it flares something awful and delighted at the bottom of Brian’s spine, cants his hips forward, and all in all is probably the reason he doesn’t notice his bedroom door opening until it’s too late.

The moment, Brian will think later, is like a photograph developing. Slow, minuscule progress, until all at once the picture comes together to create something from nothing. He’ll remember flashes; His father still in the doorway, Freddie’s suddenly frantic hands pushing on his shoulders, Brian on his feet with no recollection of moving, the fucking carolers still singing outside. But it’ll be Freddie’s face and his father’s face he’ll remember until he dies, in terrible clarity those twin expressions of utmost horror.

Then the expression is all but gone from his father, remaining only in the tight corners of his mouth, the hardness in his eyes. “Brian.” His voice is a terrifying calm. “Outside.”

Freddie has a hand covering his mouth, face white. “Stay here,” Brian says to him, and follows his father out of the room. It feels like his chest is empty, like he left his hammering heart behind him.

Harold May isn’t waiting in the hallway so Brian walks to the threshold of his parents bedroom and doesn’t cross through. Folds his arms around himself. Waits.

His father is a statue, cold and unreachable from even a few metres away. There’s a long silence, then, “I want him out of the house.”

He doesn’t look at Brian when he says it and part of Brian’s brain, the part that isn’t steeling itself and shaking, wonders if he ever will again.

“Dad-”

“I _won’t_ have him under my roof, do you hear me?”

There’s a tremor in his father’s voice, something held back by a thin thread, and suddenly Brian is so angry he can’t think. Even here, his father can’t stand to offer him anything, all of it held back and restrained and kept off limits to Brian because what has Brian ever done to deserve genuine emotion from his father.

“But you’ll have me?” He asks, and straightens. He’s taller than his father, he notices, and it’s the first time he’s noticed. It doesn’t make him feel the same way as it does with his mum, sad and a little lonely for the days she could wrap him up and protect him from everything. If anything, it makes him angrier.

“You-” Cutting himself off, his father inhales a deep breath. “It would break your mother’s heart.”

Brian laughs, an awful sound that still sounds sadder than he wanted it to. “There are worse things to be.” He keeps his voice low in the hopes it won’t tremble.

Brian was aware of himself when he got to university, had noticed the way his body reacted to a pretty boy and girl alike, even if he didn’t want to admit it. It took moving in with Roger, a free-wheeling god of chaos who didn’t care who he kissed as long as they wanted him by the dozens, to begin to allow himself a glance, a thought, a dark corner and a drunken kiss in a club sometimes. It took meeting Freddie to make a decision.

He makes another now, lifts his chin. “I won’t send him home.”

“Brian Ma-“

“If you send him home you’ll have to explain it to mum.” Brian’s brain is working quicker than his mouth, or his mouth is working quicker than his brain, either way he’s trying to catch up with himself as he says, “She loves him, she won’t let him go home without a reason.”

His father is a strange mix of red and white, a combination that scared Brian as a child certain of a telling off. Now it just highlights how old he’s become, the lines in his forehead, the liver spots at his jaw.

“Harold?” They both turn to the sound of Brian’s mum, calling up the stairs. “Boys, are you up there?”

There’s a curious absence of sound, neither Brian nor his father answering for a long second. There’s silence from Brian’s room as well, where before Brian knows Freddie would have hurried himself downstairs to delightedly entertain Ruth May, and Brian feels his anger flare up then abate away into aching at the thought of Freddie hiding himself away.

“We’ll leave after church,” Brian says, too-quick, before his father can call his bluff. His mum calls up again and he turns, yells, _‘Coming, mum!’_ before she can climb the stairs. It puts his father on a clock, and they both know it.

His father considers him. It’s a hard look, an awful look, and it’s a look that Brian recognises. Brian has spent years of his life trying to be enough to please his father, and at every struggle, every disappointment, every slightly missed grade or badly-concealed secret rock record he smuggled in, there has been this look. It’s almost a comfort to know that there’s nothing Brian can do to change it this time. And that he doesn’t want to at all.

“After church,” is said through gritted teeth. “And you never see him again.”

It’s simple. “No.”

“Then don’t bother coming home in the new year.”

Brian shakes but it feels more like his body is reacting to a blow. “Then you can tell mum why.” He says, and maybe his father will be able to stop him from coming home, will probably not speak to him again, but Brian knows he won’t manage this, won’t be able to admit what Brian is aloud.

When he gets back to his bedroom, he closes the door firmly behind him, and hopes the sound echoes in his father’s ears. Freddie has moved from his frozen position on the bed, has clearly been pacing back and forth in a fret because he breaks off mid-motion and meets him halfway. He stops a foot away, and that just won’t do.

Brian reaches for him and Freddie comes, lets Brian wrap his arms around his waist and rest his head on his shoulder, because everything suddenly feels so much heavier and Brian can’t hold it up anymore. He feels like crying. He feels like throwing something. He feels like standing here with Freddie and never opening that fucking bedroom door again.

He wishes he could go back to kissing Freddie under the mistletoe, brandy-drunk and laughing, or further, back to their flat and tell himself to never leave their covers, just spend Christmas Day in bed with the boy he loves. He wishes he was back in his parents bedroom, saying everything he wants to say to his father.

Freddie is murmuring nonsense in his ear, fingers stroking through his hair, and most of all Brian wishes he could give himself over to this.

“We’ve got to go,” he says instead, and straightens himself up. He wipes a hand across his face, trying to claw off what he’s sure is an awful expression, and Freddie catches his hand, pulls it away. “Mum will be wondering where we are.”

Freddie’s eyebrows pull together, confused. “But-”

“We’re still going to church. After that…” Brian shrugs. “He doesn’t want me back in the house but mum’s not going to accept that without an explanation. Which he’s never going to give her because he doesn’t want to-” _Break her heart._ “-acknowledge what happened. So I guess we could call it an impasse. If by _impasse_ we mean that I’ve finally disgusted my father enough for him to give me up as a bad job, but mum can never find out that her son’s a _fag_ so we’re probably just going to keep on as we always have, all pretending we’re fine, all knowing we’re not.” His words are tumbling over themselves, awful scenario after awful scenario playing itself out. “Or else he won’t let me come home, and he won’t tell mum why, so I’ll have to phone her up and lie and make excuses every time and she’ll know I’m lying, she always knows when I’m lying, and she’ll think I don’t want to come home anymore and that I don’t love her and-”

“Shush, darling, shush.” Freddie cups his face, bringing his flood of words to a halt. “Stop thinking so much. We’ll sort this.” He presses up onto his toes to lean their foreheads together, as if sealing a pact, then quietly asks, “Would it be better if I left?”

Brian’s hands tighten on Freddie’s waist, instinctive. “I can’t do this without you.”

“Then I’ll stay.” Freddie nods as if that was the only deciding factor. “We’ll go to church and sing some hymns, then get the next bus home.”

Home sounds like the only place Brian wants to be right now. Sitting on their lumpy sofa under the scratchy blanket, listening to the radio and quietly murmuring to each other in the light of the Christmas tree.

“There’s no buses today,” Brian reminds him and Freddie, somehow, grins.

“Perfect. We’ll call a taxi and travel in style.”

“Oh and I assume I’ll be paying for this?”

Freddie shrugs his shoulders, playful as if they were home already. It’s almost entirely fake, but Brian appreciates the effort. “No pockets in these trousers, dear, where would I put a wallet?”

“I could think of a few places,” Brian says, and laughs when Freddie swats at him. For a second, he forgets, then shakes his head as it returns.

Freddie’s grin fades. His eyebrows pinch together in sad understanding. “We’ll sort this, I promise.”

 _How?_ Brian wants to ask, but his mum is calling again and they have to go.

When they get downstairs, Ruth is by herself, waiting for them all with her best Sunday coat on. Brian’s chest pangs, and he finds himself reaching for her, collecting her hands up in his and pressing a fierce kiss to her forehead as she begins fussing over the pair of them. She stops, clearly confused, but he doesn’t explain. Instead he lets the smell of her perfume settle in his nose, trying to commit the scent to memory.

“Thanks for dinner, mum,” He says, and is proud his voice stays steady. “Really great.”

“ _Oh_ ,” His mum flaps her hands a little at the compliment, but Ruth May is not a stupid woman. There’s worry in her eyes as she looks up at him, a question ready on her lips, but then his father coughs from behind them, and Brian forces a smile. Lets her go. Grabs his and Freddie’s coats from the coat rack and leads the way out into the Christmas evening.

There’s a part of Brian that’s almost brave enough, wishes he was brave enough, to take Freddie’s hand. But Freddie, bundled up in his ridiculous puffed jacket, sways into his space, matches their steps, and Brian feels a more natural smile on his face as he does the same. He tucks his hands into his jacket pockets so the point of his left elbow can’t do anything else but catch on Freddie’s arm. He stumbles a little on the pavement, rights himself an inch closer to Freddie than he was before. When he points the direction for them to turn, he throws a whole arm out for Freddie to bump into, apologises through his grin.

It’s ridiculous behaviour, completely unacceptable, but it’s a game they play. They can’t hold hands and Brian can’t lead Freddie around under his arm, but this they can do. In London, Freddie is more daring; grabs Brian’s jacket to pull him along, tucks himself closer than necessary to get through the crowds, swings his hand to brush the back of Brian’s for a tantalising second. But this is enough for a short walk to the local church, with Brian’s parents not far behind, this is everything.

But it’s not part of the game when Freddie stops, clutches at Brian’s arm and whispers an enchanted “ _Oh!_ ” at the sight of the little church Brian grew up attending every Sunday and Christmas. It’s just Freddie, enamoured with the snow-covered graveyard, the kissing gate at the entrance, the candles lighting the way to the warm lights glowing through the church windows and the beginnings of organ music trickling out of the door. Brian doesn’t even try to hide the smile on his face as he watches Freddie fall in love.

“I’ve never been to a Christmas service before,” Freddie admits, yet again, as Brian ushers them across the road and into the church. “Is it frightfully dull? You can tell me if it is. I don’t want my heart to break in front of your mother.”

Truthfully, Brian has never been enamoured with church. He doesn’t think his father is either, but his mum likes the tradition and the ceremony and, for all their faults, they’ve always done their best to make Ruth May happy. The Christmas Day service was always a nuisance; singing songs he didn’t like to dreary organ music, buttoned into a smart shirt and tie too tight around his neck, his mum’s friends fussing after the service. But Brian does remember being a small child and standing on the pews to sing at the top of his lungs, dazzled by the lights and the tinsel, remembers swinging between his parents’ hands on the walk home, still singing half-remembered carols. He thinks Freddie might have more in common with those memories, able to eek out magic wherever he looks.

“Just wait and see.”

Freddie huffs goodnaturedly, accepting a hymn sheet from one of the attendees, and tilts his head back to take in the lights strung across the arches of the roof. His eyes reflect them, sparkles in the dark.

The two of them are definitely the youngest here who aren’t also under the age of twelve. Brian recognises most of his parents’ friends, and suffers a few _Brian, gosh, is that you, how’s the college life treating you_ s before his mum arrives and they all become a flurry of chatter and seasons greetings. Brian escapes to stand out of the way with Freddie, notices his father doing the same on the other side of the huddle. When their eyes meet, Brian leans closer to Freddie to read the hymn sheet over his shoulder.

“Brian, dear, we’re going to sit with the Johnsons at the front. Are you and Freddie…” His mum is already looking around for a seat for them, probably close to the front with her and the ever accommodating Johnsons despite the pews being almost crammed to bursting, and Brian waves her off before she can do anything dangerous like ask anyone to move along for them.

“Go ahead, we’ll be fine here.” And he escorts Freddie into one of the emptier rows at the back, a brave hand on the small of his back. If his father is watching, Brian doesn’t care to check.

He can blame the way he tucks his legs close to Freddie’s on the space between the pews being too small for his legs, but the arm he lays along the back of the seat to all but tuck Freddie into his body is almost damning. It’s a different kind of boldness than before, the unshakeable kind rather than a kind borne of liquor, though Brian thinks perhaps some more brandy wouldn’t go amiss.

Freddie presses a reassuring hand to his knee, quick but firm, and the service starts.

At multiple times throughout, Brian fantasises about leaving. As much as he tries, he can’t stop watching the resolute and unmoving shoulders of his father pews ahead, and every time he sees him he wants to take Freddie by the hand and pull him away, take him home. But even as he pictures the exact route home and how he’d press Freddie against every street lamp he could just because he could in the dark, he know he can’t do it to his mum. Not when it all looks to fall apart anyway. He won’t break her heart a minute before he has to.

Besides, next to him Freddie has clearly decided to make the most of a bad situation and is adding a certain amount of flair to Christmas carols that Brian has never come across before. Freddie keeps sliding him glances, trying to catch him in a stifled laugh when Freddie throws a note he’s not expecting, and Brian loves him so much that he’s helpless to stop it from spreading across his face.

“They’re going to kick us out.”

“Not after this performance they won’t.” Freddie winks at him, then transforms before his eyes as the bars of _Silent Night_ begin on the old organ.

Brian loves to listen to Freddie sing. Listening to Freddie sing can make Brian feel like anything in the world, but listening to his sweet, high voice rising through the bars, stripped back and innocent, makes Brian want to live in this moment forever. It passes, of course it does, but Freddie is still singing and Brian is still so in love with him in every way he can be.

In the small gap between them, Brian twists their fingers together and doesn’t let go until the service ends.

The church attendants start bringing out mulled wine and trays upon trays of home-baked mince pies as the vicar descends to shake the hand of every worthy follower who attended today, which means Brian is definitely, finally, ready to leave. He searches for his mum in the crowd and spots her easily, points her out to Freddie who slips through the pack of people ahead of him to catch her before Brian’s father sees him. By the time Brian gets there, Freddie and his mum are hugging and his mum is promising to give Freddie the recipe for her treacle tart.

“You can’t cook,” He says without thinking, and Freddie glares at him, betrayed.

“Well then _you_ can make it for me, darling.” His narrowed eyes soften again when he looks back to Ruth, takes her hands in his. ”Thank you for having me today.”

“Of course, dear,” Brian’s mum smiles sincerely at him, then her eyes move to Brian. “Freddie, would you mind giving me a moment alone with my son?”

Freddie, the traitor, goes.

“Mum-”

“I know something is wrong.” Her gaze is exacting, as if she can read everything in Brian’s head for her own. “I won’t have the two of you hurting each other like this, Brian, I won’t.”

Brian shakes his head, wraps his arms around himself. “It’s not like the other times, Mum.”

“I know that too.”

Brian wonders at how much she knows, then decides it doesn’t matter.

“Can it be fixed?” She asks and sighs when Brian doesn’t answer. It’s a heavy sound that his mum doesn’t deserve to carry.

“I’ll call next week,” He promises weakly, because it’s all he has to promise right now.

She purses her lips, then nods. “Not on New Years. The phone lines will be all tied up.”

“Okay.” When he hugs her goodbye, he hugs her tight. When he pulls away, she lifts a hand to his face, cups it. Brian closes his eyes, and then she’s gone.

He finds Freddie waiting outside the church.

Clad in only a tiny jacket and without the dual distractions of angry fathers or new Christmas traditions, the other boy is shivering, breath coming away in large plumes as he rubs his hands together and waits in the cold for Brian. There’s snow falling into his hair, the lightest flakes, and in the wash of light from the church windows he could be a creature sent to bestow a small miracle.

Then he turns, spots Brian watching him, and rolls his eyes in a distinctly uncelestial manner. “Brian, it’s fucking _freezing_. I know I’m a gorgeous piece of arse but can we appreciate it somewhere warmer please.”

He claps a hand over his mouth instantly, as if he can recall the loud words, and Brian tips his head back and laughs.

When he’s done, Freddie still looks unimpressed, but he’s smiling as Brian wraps an arm around his shoulders, pulls him in close. No one could have heard them over the sound of conversation, the still-playing organ music, and they’re the only ones to have left. The night, it seems, belongs solely to them, so Brian allows himself this other bravery,

It takes them a walk to the closest phone box five streets away, a ten minute wait in the cold, a hideously overpriced taxi ride, and Freddie cheerfully singing his way through every Christmas song he knows to get them back to Brian’s flat.

The flat is exactly how they left it this morning, which feels strange. Brian feels so completely changed from who he was when he left, that it feels wrong that the tree should still be sitting lopsided by the window, or that the paper from the presents they exchanged before leaving should still be screwed up on the floor like it was tossed there by two carefree boys too preoccupied with kissing thanks into each others’ mouths than with something as dull as tidying up after themselves.

Actually, the flat is _almost_ exactly how they left it this morning.

Sitting on the coffee table, a crumpled bow tied around the neck and a scrap of paper wedged underneath in place of a tag, is a tall bottle of whiskey that definitely wasn’t there when they left.

Freddie reaches for the tag, snorts, and hands it over for Brian to inspect.

 _Happy Christmas You Gorgeous Poofs!_ is scrawled across the note in Roger’s manic handwriting.

Brian laughs. Freddie is already opening the bottle. “You can always count on Roger Taylor,” he says, taking a hearty swig before passing it to Brian. “To give you exactly what you need.”

“So long as what you need is plenty of alcohol.” Brian toasts the sentiment, and takes his own sip. It spreads warm heat through him and settles his stomach some, so he takes another.

He’s sure the night hasn’t fully sunk in yet, knows that it will tomorrow, but for tonight all Brian wants to do is curl up with Freddie, and possibly this handy bottle of whiskey, in their bed and shut out the world. Pretend they never left this morning and spent Christmas the way it should have been spent; together and fuck everyone else.

Freddie, sensing the mood, sets down the bottle and pulls him through to the bedroom, hands on his like two lifelines pulling him to shore. “I got you another present,” He says, eyes wicked and grin sharp. “It’s a naughty one.”

Brian lets himself be pulled, interest caught. “Yeah?”

“There’s _lace_.”

“This sounds more like a present for you than me.”

Freddie shrugs, unrepentant. “There is no ‘I’ in team, dear.” He pecks at Brian’s mouth, light and testing. “Would you like to unwrap it?”

Brian pulls him back for another kiss, because Freddie is brilliant and should be kissed as much as Brian is physically able to. Freddie melts against him, as always, and Brian tries his best to put every piece of love and gratitude into each brush of their lips. For coming with him today, for keeping his head, for doing his best to hold Brian together, and for loving his mum so much. It’s for the sound of his voice when he sings, his kisses under mistletoe and everywhere else they can manage, for the way he looked in Brian’s bedroom and the way he looks now in Brian’s flat. It’s for how they both taste like the same whiskey, and even for this hidden dirty present Brian still has to open.

“Tomorrow,” He promises, and walks Freddie to the bed. “I have everything I want right here.”

 


End file.
